Understanding Unmet Healthcare Needs in Nigeria: Implications for Universal Health Coverage

Area of Science:

• Health Economics
• Public Health
• Health Services Research

Background:

• Many individuals in low- and middle-income countries face barriers to accessing essential healthcare services.
• Existing universal health coverage (UHC) indicators do not fully capture the extent of unmet healthcare needs within a population.

Purpose of the Study:

• To estimate the prevalence of unmet healthcare needs in Nigeria.
• To analyze wealth-related inequalities associated with these unmet needs.
• To identify key determinants of unmet healthcare needs at individual, household, and community levels.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of a nationally representative cross-sectional sample of 116,320 Nigerians from the 2018-2019 Nigeria Living Standards Survey.
• Utilized self-reported unmet healthcare needs as the primary outcome variable.
• Employed concentration index (CIX) analysis for wealth-related inequality and multilevel logistic regression for determinant identification.

Main Results:

• The prevalence of unmet healthcare needs was 5.2%, affecting approximately 11 million Nigerians.
• High costs (unaffordability) and perceived low illness severity were the most common reasons for unmet needs.
• Pro-poor wealth-related inequality was observed (CIX: -0.097), with significant determinants including chronic illness, single-person households, poverty, and food insecurity.

Conclusions:

• A substantial proportion of Nigerians, especially the poor, chronically ill, and food-insecure, experience unmet healthcare needs.
• Targeted interventions are crucial to ensure equitable access to essential healthcare services for vulnerable groups.
• Addressing healthcare accessibility issues is vital for Nigeria's progress towards universal health coverage (UHC).